When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be an adult—have my own money, make my own decisions, and live life on my terms. Then adulthood hit, and I quickly realized that half my paycheck went to rent, taxes were a mystery, and while I could tell you that a² + b² = c², I had no idea what a W-2 was.
Luckily, I had peers and mentors to guide me through these financial learning moments. But when I started teaching in a low-income school, I saw firsthand that many of my students didn’t have that same support. And the consequences are real.
And this only spirals. 78% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. 2 out of 3 families lack emergency savings. And almost 75% of workers are in some form of debt, many believing they always will be.
As a former teacher, I can tell you why. Educators overwhelmingly want to incorporate real world learning into their classrooms, but between packed schedules, limited resources, and high-stakes testing, financial literacy often gets pushed aside.
Students might have the chance to take a personal finance course in high school, but only 7% of students in low-income communities are guaranteed access—and these are often the students who need it most. By the time they reach high school, they’ve also missed critical years of early financial habit development, which begins as young as age six.
Determined to bridge this gap, I started using a paper-based classroom economy system—giving students a hands-on way to practice earning, saving, and spending. But between tracking, managing, and distributing paper currency for 120 middle schoolers, it became unsustainable.
That’s why we built ClassBank—a digital classroom economy designed to seamlessly integrate financial literacy into any classroom, without adding more work for teachers.
ClassBank takes the best aspects of a traditional token economy and transforms it into an easy-to-use digital platform. With built-in tools for earning classroom dollars, paying bills, applying for jobs, and managing a student store, teachers can turn their classroom into a mini-economy—no paperwork required.
"The program is a fun and exciting way for students to learn financial responsibility, organization and delayed gratification, and other life skills."
ClassBank provides teachers with everything they need—whether they want a plug-and-play solution with our suggested settings or full customization to fit their unique classroom needs.
By streamlining and simplifying the classroom economy, ClassBank makes financial literacy accessible to every student, in every classroom.
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